We have brought this up to our table so many times, one of the conversations that always seem to find their way back into our days. You would be stirring your coffee while it was still warm, and I would be sitting across from you, peeling our favorite oranges one little piece at a time. There would be little bits of peel on my side of the table, your spoon clinking against the rim of your cup, and the afternoon sunlight finding its way through the windows. Somewhere between your sip and another piece of orange, there is nothing better than bothering each other for the rest of the afternoon, am I right?

Sayang, should we plant orange trees in our backyard?

I think I, no… I think we would like that very much. The thought of having something that begins with our hands in the soil and grows quietly, we would probably spend the first few days checking on it far more often than necessary, wondering whether we had watered it enough or given it the right amount of sunlight, wondering if it will grow the way we hoped, wondering if we had enough space for the root to grow freely beneath us, wondering and wondering and wondering when it will grow big because we just cannot wait any longer. You might tell me to stop fussing over it, and I would probably remind you that you were the one who agreed to plant it in the first place. And so, the laugh will bloom even before the root takes its place beneath us.

Sayangku, perhaps, we had not just begun something we would spend the rest of our lives watching grow.

I can already picture the little habits that would come with it: we would water it in the morning before going about our separate routines (I hate work because you will not be there with me), and on particularly busy days, one of us would have to remind the other. I would probably forget once or twice, and you would pretend to be terribly disappointed in my gardening skills until I promised to do better tomorrow (please remind me more, put yourself in every space I have). Perhaps we would argue over where to place another pot, whether the soil needed changing, or whether the little branch growing sideways ought to be left alone.

I want a love like that with you, sayang. Not one that only knows how to speak beautifully about forever, but one that knows what to do with an ordinary afternoon. One that remembers to buy the groceries, leaves the last piece of fruit for the other, knows which cup belongs to whom (but I don’t think we care enough?). I want to know the small, unremarkable details of your life until caring for you becomes as natural as reaching for my own glass of water. I want to know when your coffee has gone cold because you have been too caught up in telling me a story, and I want you to know that when I peel my oranges a little more slowly than usual, I might simply need you to sit with me for a while. Sit with me?

And I hope we will build that kind of home together: a home where neither of us has to earn the right to be tired, where silence is not mistaken for distance, and where coming back to each other does not require either of us to have the perfect words. (Let’s just come home because I missed you already.) Some evenings, you might come home with a head full of things you have not yet had the chance to put down, and I will listen while you tell me about them. Other evenings, I might be the one who needs to be held together a little, and I hope you will know that I am not asking you to solve every difficult thing. That, I will only need your hand resting over mine, your familiar presence beside me, and whatever the day has made of us, we do not have to face the rest of it alone.

Perhaps this is why I want us to plant a tree. There is something about its way of living that reminds me of the kind of marriage I want to have with you. (But we did?). A tree does not grow taller by abandoning the ground that holds it, sayang, it reaches for the sky because its roots have somewhere to remain. Its branches can spread farther and farther, but the life that sustains them is gathered quietly beneath the surface, out of sight and away from applause. And I think there is a tenderness in that which I would like us to remember, we can have our own ambitions, our own work, our own little corners of the world to tend to, our little space, our time to be alone. But here is us, next to each other with a lot of things inside our head without having to become strangers to the place where we began. Because we are already home. I want you to have room to discover things about yourself that even you have not yet imagined. I want to see you change your mind, find new interests, become better at things you once struggled with, and grow into versions of yourself that our younger selves could not have predicted. I want the same freedom for myself, too.

And through all of that, I hope we can remain the sort of people who are curious about each other, who still ask questions over dinner, who still make room for a new story even after years of knowing the person telling it.

Because loving someone for a lifetime must mean learning them more than once. It means understanding that the person who sits beside you today will not remain untouched by the years, and that neither will you. Our faces will change, sayang, we will grow old hahahaha! Our bodies will grow tired in places they never used to, and some of the things that once occupied our minds will eventually become distant memories. I wish. I wish. I wish. I wish I never had to put you just as my memories.

Sayangku, there will be things we outgrow and things we learn to hold more gently. But I hope that through every version of ourselves, we will keep finding reasons to be interested in the lives we are living together;

The way we might walk past the tree in our backyard and stop to inspect a new leaf, even when we have seen hundreds of them before. The way I will still bring you a piece of orange without asking whether you want one because, after all these years, I will probably already know your answer. And if you happen to steal the sweeter piece from my plate, I hope I will still have enough affection left in me to complain about it. I hope our home will be full of such small continuities. Sayangku, I want us to make a life that feels lived in, with familiar places, with stories that become family folklore simply because we have told them so many times (I won’t get tired, I promise), and the kitchen that remembers the meals we have made for each other (and your favorite spot where you made our coffee).

I hope we will remember that not every change is a catastrophe. Some branches need pruning so that new growth can find its way through. Some leaves have to fall because the season has changed, not because the tree has forgotten how to live. Perhaps there will be things we have to release in our marriage, too: old assumptions, stubbornness, the need to be right, or the expectation that love should always feel as effortless as it did when we first began. I hope we will learn to tell the difference between something that needs our patience and something that needs our courage. More than anything, I hope we will never be too proud to return to the table, sit across from each other, and begin the conversation again.

And I only hope we will remain willing to care for what life places in our hands.

Sayangku, our hands will not be as quick as they are now. Perhaps yours will tremble a little when you reach for your cup, and perhaps mine will take longer to finish peeling an orange. (Oh, we have grown old..) We will probably have to sit down more often during our walks, and we might find ourselves telling the same stories without realizing we have already told them the week before. I can imagine you laughing at something I say, and then laughing even harder when I insist that you have heard it wrong. I can imagine myself pretending to be offended, only to reach for your hand a moment later.

And outside, sayang, the tree will have grown into something we could scarcely have imagined when we first placed that little seed in the ground. Its shade will stretch across the yard, its branches will have weathered more seasons than we can count, and its roots will have made their home in the earth beneath our feet. And just like you always wish, a little family of birds might live there. We might not remember every time we watered it or every little thing we did to keep it alive. We might not even remember which of us first noticed that it had grown a little taller.

But I hope we will remember that we wanted it there, that we chose to care for it together, and that it became part of the life we made.

So, yes, sayangku, let us plant a tree in our backyard. Let us give it a place in our home and a little of our time without asking it to become a monument to our love. Let it simply be alive, growing through the seasons as we grow through ours. Let it stand beside the life we are building, a witness to the meals we share, the conversations we have, the disagreements we mend, and the mornings when one of us wakes up earlier just to make coffee for the other.

And if someday, sayangku, we are no longer here to sit beneath its branches, I hope it will continue to offer shade to someone who needs a place to rest. Perhaps a child will sit there with a book, or a stranger will pause beneath it on a particularly hot afternoon. They will know nothing about the two people who planted it, the conversations that led to its being there, or the years of love that unfolded within its shade. And that is all right. They do not have to know our names for the care we gave it to have mattered.

Our love was never meant to end with what we could keep for ourselves.

I want to love you in a way that makes room for life beyond our own. To build a home with you that gives us somewhere to belong, and to leave behind little things that make the world a gentler place to live in. I want us to understand that even the most private acts of love can reach farther than we ever intended. And when the years have carried us as far as they can, I hope I will be able to look at our life and know that we did not spend it trying to outrun the ending. We spent it making something worth having lived for. We made a home. We learned each other. We planted a little seed and gave it the years we had. We loved in all the small, imperfect ways that a human life allows.

So, yes, sayangku, let us plant it. Let us come home to it after work, tend to it between our errands, and watch it grow. And if one day, long after our hands have grown too tired to tend the earth, that tree is still standing where we planted it, I hope its existence will be enough, as a reminder that we spent ours well.

We may not get to grow old forever, Sabian, but we can leave a little of our love in the tree, tucked into its roots and carried through every branch that reaches for the sky. And long after our hands have grown too old to tend to it, it will keep growing where we once stood, holding the little pieces of our life together, as though the years we spent loving each other had found a way to stay. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Lilin-lilin kembali berbaris rapi bersama harap yang perlahan dirahasiakan di antara kedua telapak tangan, ada banyak doa yang diam-diam tumbuh di belakangnya, ada ribuan mimpi yang masih menunggu untuk dijemput oleh langkah-langkah yang belum selesai, ada kebahagiaan yang barangkali sedang dirajut pelan-pelan oleh waktu, menunggu untuk disematkan pada lembar yang baru.

Sudah berapa lama sekarang?

Berawal dari satu menjadi dua, tiga, lalu empat, sampai akhirnya angka-angka itu tumbuh berdampingan: sepuluh, lantas sebelas. Rasanya mungkin sudah terlalu lama berjalan. Terlalu banyak jalan yang harus dilewati, terlalu banyak hari yang harus diselesaikan, terlalu banyak hal yang akhirnya hanya bisa dipeluk sendirian. Ada lelah yang berkali-kali singgah di pundak, menetap lebih lama dari yang diharapkan.

Tapi, sayangku, lihatlah dirimu sekarang.

Doa-doa yang pernah kamu titipkan pada langit ternyata tidak pernah benar-benar pergi. Mereka tumbuh diam-diam, berjalan di sebelahmu dalam bentuk yang mungkin tidak selalu kamu kenali. Ada yang menjadi kekuatan ketika kakimu hampir kehilangan arah, ada yang menjelma menjadi pertemuan-pertemuan baik, ada pula yang belum sampai kepadamu karena barangkali masih mencari jalan pulang yang paling tepat.

Lelahnya masih ada, sesekali datang tanpa mengetuk, menggantung berat di pundak, membuat satu langkah terasa seperti harus menempuh begitu banyak jarak. Namun kamu selalu menemukan cara untuk melanjutkan. Di antara hari-hari yang tidak selalu ramah, kamu masih mampu menyisihkan sedikit ruang untuk menanam doa yang baru. Kamu masih tahu bagaimana merawat harapan yang pernah patah, dan bagaimana mengumpulkan kembali bagian-bagian kecil dari dirimu yang sempat kamu asingkan.

Barangkali bertambah usia memang bukan tentang seberapa jauh seseorang telah berjalan.

Barangkali lebih tentang berapa banyak perjalanan yang berhasil kamu lewati tanpa benar-benar kehilangan dirimu sendiri di tengah jalan. Tentang berapa banyak pagi yang tetap kamu sambut meski malam sebelumnya terasa terlalu panjang. Tentang bagaimana kamu masih mampu menemukan titik-titik cahaya di antara hari-hari yang pernah begitu gelap. Tentang segala sesuatu yang pernah membuatmu ingin berhenti, tetapi pada akhirnya tidak berhasil membuatmu menyerah sepenuhnya.

Sebab sayang, dari setiap lembar yang telah kamu lewati, ada begitu banyak dirimu yang pernah hidup di sana.

Ada kamu yang pernah begitu berani. Ada kamu yang pernah takut. Ada kamu yang pernah mencintai dengan seluruh hati. Ada kamu yang pernah kecewa, kehilangan, menangis diam-diam, lalu bangun kembali seolah tidak terjadi apa-apa. Ada kamu yang pernah tidak tahu harus berjalan ke mana, tetapi tetap memilih untuk mengambil satu langkah kecil. Dan semuanya masih menjadi bagian dari dirimu yang sekarang.

Sayangku, mungkin pada akhirnya tidak ada yang benar-benar sia-sia. Bahkan hari-hari yang ingin kamu lupakan ikut mengantarkanmu sampai ke sini.

Sayangku, pada lembar yang baru ini, semoga hidup memperlakukanmu dengan lebih baik lagi. Semoga jalan yang akan kamu jejaki cukup lapang untuk membuatmu bernapas tanpa terburu-buru. Semoga langkahmu dipertemukan dengan banyak hal baik: dengan orang-orang yang tahu bagaimana menghargai kerja kerasmu, yang tahu bagaimana merangkul lelah yang selama ini kamu simpan sendirian.

Semoga kamu menemukan tempat-tempat yang tidak membuatmu merasa harus menjadi siapa-siapa selain dirimu sendiri.

Semoga kebahagiaan tidak selalu menjadi sesuatu yang harus kamu kejar, semoga sesekali ia datang lebih dulu, lantas duduk di sebelahmu dan tinggal tanpa perlu diminta. Untuk segala hal yang selama ini kamu semogakan, semoga perlahan ia menemukan bentuknya.

Semoga kamu tetap menjadi rumah bagi dirimu sendiri, sayangku. Dan menjadi tempat yang selalu bersedia menerima kepulanganmu.

Ini mungkin datang terlalu cepat, tapi mari kita biarkan lilin-lilin itu menyala sedikit lebih lama. Biarkan nyala kecilnya membawa kembali seluruh perjalananmu ke dalam satu cahaya: hari-hari yang pernah membuatmu tertawa, malam-malam yang pernah membuatmu bertanya, nama-nama yang pernah tinggal, mereka yang akhirnya pergi, mimpi-mimpi yang masih menunggu untuk disambut kedatangannya, doa-doa yang belum selesai. Serta bagian-bagian kecil dari dirimu yang masih sering meragukan diri sendiri untuk sampai di sini.

Ketika nanti lilin-lilin itu satu per-satu meredup, semoga bukan hanya satu permintaan yang ikut terbang bersama asapnya. Aku ingin percaya bahwa setiap harap dan semoga yang aku lepaskan pada langit dan yang pernah kamu simpan diam-diam akan menemukan rumahnya masing-masing. Mungkin tidak hari ini. Mungkin tidak besok. Semoga suatu hari nanti, kamu akan berdiri di hadapan hal-hal yang pernah kamu doakan, dan mengetuk pintunya dengan tanganmu sendiri untuk kamu singgahi.

Sayangku, terima kasih untuk setiap kali kamu memilih melanjutkan meski tidak tahu apa yang menunggu di depan, untuk setiap doa yang tetap kamu panjatkan meski pernah merasa tidak didengar, untuk setiap harapan yang kamu rawat meski pernah ada alasan untuk berhenti percaya. Sayangku, lilin-lilin akan terus berganti. Angkanya akan kembali berdampingan dengan angka yang baru. Lembar demi lembar akan terus terbuka, bahkan ketika kita belum tahu apa yang akan menunggu atau apa yang telah menanti.

Untuk hari ini, dan untuk hari-hari yang masih menunggu, semoga hidup selalu menyisakan ruang untukmu.

Selamat bertambah usia, sayangku. Semoga langkahmu panjang, semoga doa-doa menemukan jalannya, mimpi-mimpimu menemukan waktunya, dan segala sesuatu yang baik menemukan di mana kamu menunggu. Semoga setelah ini, ada lebih banyak kehidupan yang bisa kamu rayakan, dan ada begitu banyak bagian dirimu yang bisa kamu peluk lebih erat setelah semuanya.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FUjEcpRpHA0&si=VB6bz05sI84ipGPW

Bagaimana cara mengatakannya dengan sebaik-baik mungkin, cara agar apa yang ingin disampaikan tidak kehilangan dirinya ketika berada dihadapanmu?

Apa kalimat-kalimat ini bisa merangkai dirinya sendiri, menemukan jalan dari satu kata menuju kata berikutnya lalu beristirahat tepat di sebelahmu?

Bisakah aku meminta mereka menyampaikan apa yang belum cukup berani kuucapkan?

Kata yang terlalu takut akan lancang hadir di antara pertemuan kita yang bahkan masih bisa dihitung angkanya oleh semesta? Sampai kapan hingga akhirnya aku bisa membiarkan cinta yang mengerti kita?

Ada hal-hal yang rasanya terlalu luas untuk dijelaskan dengan kata-kata, dan ada ketakutan kecil yang berdiam di sudut ruang tunggu dengan papan nama khawatir jika apa yang disampaikan tidak sepenuhnya utuh pada pangkuan tangan. Ada perasaan yang bahkan belum sempat diberi nama namun sudah lebih dulu menjajakan dirinya dan mengerti di mana kita selipkan cinta yang baru tumbuh agar bisa ditemani. Ada perasaan yang mencoba untuk perlahan belajar, memupuk dirinya sendiri agar tumbuh bersama, agar saling memahami luka dari perjalanan, pada bahagia yang pelan-pelan hadir di antara kita.

Pertemuan, perkenalan, perjalanan, pertumbuhan, pembelajaran, serta setiap pijakan kecil yang kita lalui bersama. Akan aku biarkan mereka menetap tinggal pada ingatan, menjelma menjadi hari-hari yang kita rayakan.

Gelak tawamu adalah hal yang paling menarik, yang begitu pintar menari masuk ke telinga, begitu mudah untuk diingat, begitu baik untuk diterima. Sudah berapa kali kamu tertawa hari ini, sayang? Sebahagia itukah hari yang sedang kamu jalani? Sebaik itukah dunia memperlakukan dirimu? Atau mungkin karena kamu datang dari sebaik-baiknya sebuah kebaikan, lantas bahagia nampaknya begitu mudah menemukan jalan untuk tinggal di sana? Bagaimana tawa itu dilepas bebas bersama cerita yang belum tuntas, yang sengaja berhenti sebab kamu ‘tak lagi tahan untuk tidak melepas tawa. Bagimana rasanya bahagia ikut hadir di sela-sela aku memerhatikan raut wajahmu yang berubah, padahal, sayang, aku bahkan belum tau apa yang sebenarnya ingin kamu sampaikan. Lucu, bukan? Bahagia hadir begitu sederhana, tanpa balutan kemewahan, tanpa harus dipaksa datang, ia duduk di antara kita berteman cinta.

Mata adalah alat paling baik untuk menyimpan sebuah bahagia, maka aku tinggalkan hal-hal indah itu di sana. Aku biarkan semuanya berputar di dalam ingatan, menempati ruang-ruang kecil yang mungkin tidak pernah kusadari keberadaannya. Aku persilakan kenangan-kenangan itu kembali kapan saja mereka mau, muncul tanpa permisi hanya untuk mendatangkan senyum bodoh di wajahku, seolah-olah itulah satu-satunya hal yang paling sering mereka lakukan; membuatku tersenyum untukmu, sebab dirimu. Jika suatu hari nanti tawa itu terdengar sedikit berbeda, jika langkah kita menjadi lebih panjang dan perjalanan kita membawa kita melewati tempat-tempat yang belum pernah dilalui, yang terlalu asing untuk disinggahi, aku harap kita tetap mengenali satu sama lain di antara tawa yang sempat saling duduk bersama.

Sebab aku ingin jatuh cinta kepadamu hari ini,

Aku ingin terus menemukan alasan untuk jatuh cinta di antara kita, ketika kita sudah mengenal lebih banyak tentang satu sama lain. Ketika kita sudah melewati hari-hari yang tidak selalu mudah. Ketika tawamu berubah. Ketika keheningan terkadang hadir di antara kita. Ketika kita berubah, belajar, tumbuh, mungkin menjadi sedikit berbeda dari orang yang pertama kali kita temui.

dan melihat cinta ikut tumbuh bersama kita.

Aku ingin mengenalmu lebih dari sekadar siapa dirimu hari ini, mengerti segala hal-hal kecil yang kamu coba lalui, hal-hal yang masih kamu benamkan jauh di dalam kepala, hal-hal yang coba kamu simpan sendiri di saat malam hampir berganti pagi. Aku ingin tau bagaimana kita akan tumbuh, apa yang akan berubah, apa yang akan tetap tinggal, hal-hal apa yang kelak membuat kita tertawa, apakah itu masih hal-hal yang sama dengan bahagia yang juga sama? Atau justru kita memikirkan kenapa juga kita tertawa untuk hal terlalu remeh?

Maka, semoga kita tetap mengenali satu sama lain dengan cara yang tidak berubah; dengan bahagia yang sama.

Melalui hari-hari ketika kita mudah dicintai, melalui hari-hari ketika kita masih belajar menjadi seseorang yang pantas menerima cinta sebaik ini, melalui hal-hal baru yang akan kita temui di tengah jalan, di persimpangan, di antara penatnya Ibu Kota, di antara tawa yang ditahan sebab kita sedang berdesak-desakan. Aku harap kita tetap mengenal cinta yang sama di antara satu sama lain.

Kita belum tau sejauh apa kita akan tumbuh bersama, seberapa banyak pagi yang akan kita temui, berapa banyak malam yang akan kita lewati, berapa banyak tawa yang kita bagi di antara tawa yang bahkan belum tuntas, berapa banyak hari yang akan kita lupa sebab bersama kamu terasa lebih mudah.

Kita mungkin baru mengenal, tapi aku masih ingin mengenal kamu lagi besok pagi, keesokan hari, lusa yang aku harap datang segera, bahkan setelah minggu-minggu panjang kita lalui. Pada hari-hari yang pernah kita temui, pada hari yang menunggu kita dikemudian nanti, aku ingin mengenal dan jatuh cinta lagi.

It’s 1AM already, I can imagine you sulking because I promised to sleep early, but I couldn’t.. So I decided to be here now and continue later, though I am not really sure either. Maybe I just want to write whatever comes to my mind before I lose it again, because sometimes I think too much about what I should say and then suddenly I have nothing left to say at all. Or maybe it’s because being with you already feels like something I have been looking for, that it all becomes perfect even if it’s just a slow day after a tired one at work. Or maybe, it’s because I am with you.

Do you remember that I once said I was afraid I couldn’t write something for you? I peeled myself bare that day, I told you what I was thinking about it. I told you that I was afraid I couldn’t give you what you deserve. I was afraid that I would fail sometimes and make you think I don’t love you enough just because I can’t write it the way I used to, only to end up like this again, I ended up realizing that there’s actually so much I could do and write when it comes to you. Maybe I was just too afraid of not being enough that I forgot how much you already give me to hold onto. (Please don’t be mad.) How much you made me feel loved makes me afraid I didn’t give the same in return and for countless times you said you will still embrace me the way I am no matter what, that I know you will meet me halfway, and I know you will hold my hands, still. And I know it’s totally silly of me to think that way when I know you will always make sure I am loved, even when we are busy.

Then, I wish my love will always reach you, Sabian. Even when we are apart, when I am no longer able to write something beautiful and all I can say is I love you. I hope it will always reach you with the same tenderness that we have been planting together for all this time.

I am continue this again after reading your writing, how beautiful… Maybe that’s true. We won’t realize when we are already becoming part of someone’s life when it’s starting to feel like ours too. Not only as partners, because somehow we could suddenly realize that we are just the same as we were back then, or purposely meet each other halfway because we already know they will be there. We know how they used to do it, we remember the little things, and somehow we start doing the same without realizing it. Maybe because being with someone for so long makes you learn their way of reaching you, and eventually you just know where to meet them even without being asked. Maybe that’s another kind of love too, when you already know where someone will be, so you find your way there without being told. We won’t need to do something more just to make them smile because the smallest things already feel like the biggest thing we could get. That’s how I feel when you are here. Sometimes it’s just having you sitting somewhere in the same little corner of our days—sitting next to me. Knowing that I can come back to you after everything else has been loud for too long, and somehow those things mean more to me than I know how to explain. I think that’s one of the things I learned from being with you for this long.

Love doesn’t always announce itself, it becomes the person you want to tell something to, even when it’s stupid.

It becomes the name you look for without thinking. It becomes a presence that you don’t have to constantly hold onto because somewhere in your heart, you already know it is there. After all this long journey with you, I have realized that there’s a lot that I have been learning from you. There’s a lot, and it’s not just about love. Having you around me makes me know that love isn’t just about two people who fall in love romantically. The word love is so much bigger than that. There are so many meanings that could describe it, so many little ways it can exist between two people without needing to be named every single time.

Somehow being with you teaches me something that maybe at first, I didn’t think I needed. Something I refused to understand or accept sometimes. Not only the love that grows because it has already been so long being with you, but I, us, we have grown alongside it too. Maybe that’s the part I didn’t notice at first, I thought love was something we carried, but perhaps it was also something that carried us while we were learning how to become better at loving each other. (We did, right?)

And that’s just one of the things I realized, Sabian. I can say more, but I think it will become more and more and more and more each day. My heart has a lot of room to learn, to keep things, to be a keepsake for all the little things we have shared, and somehow you are always part of it. You will always be part of it. Because there will always be another thing I learn about you, about us, about myself and us through you. Who knows I will look back at this someday and realize that even this wasn’t the end of what I wanted to say, or feel silly because what the fuck did I write, and who knows I might feel grateful because I know the old me was having his greatest life because he’s being loved by you. If only you could see it yourself, I hope you know just how wide my smile is whenever I am with you. I hope you know how it feels to be loved by you from where I stand, how strange and beautiful it is to be known so well by someone and still feel safe enough to be seen.

I don’t know how many words I will have for you tomorrow, or next month, or years from now. Maybe some days I will write a lot, and some days I will only be able to say your name along with just how grateful I am. Maybe that has always been enough anyway. And if there are any other words beside I love you, it will be your name that I won’t forget for a long time, the name that could love me so well that sometimes they forget to give the same in return to themselves, the name that teach me kindness that sometimes they still learn the same to give it to themselves, and the same name that makes me think I was enough when they also needed the same comfort. And the same name who somehow knows how to be there whenever I need someone to lean on because the world wasn’t being kind to me, while I also know that they were wanting the same warmth too.

Sabian, if there are any other words beside I love you, I hope it will be you, I hope it will be you that came along with happiness because it will be more perfect, it will be enough because I have you. Until forever dies within this body and we are still tending the same tenderness, I hope it’s yours. I hope whenever we both need somewhere to rest, we will somehow keep finding that place in each other. I hope it’s you.

How much time has passed now?

I think I have long since forgotten how to count it, and somewhere between absence and the countless seasons that came along with longing, I stopped measuring the distance between then and now. Time has a gentle way of slipping through our hands, soft enough to go unnoticed until we look back and realize how much of life has already unfolded before us.

And yet, here you are.

Still reaching for my hand as though it has always belonged there. It always does. Still looking at me with the same tenderness that first taught my heart what it meant to be loved, and how it feels like to be loved by you. Sometimes I wonder if time ever truly touched us at all because when you smile at me every distance between us folds into something weightless, into something that feels like it never happened before — it feels less like we found each other again, it’s more like we are meant to be here, again. I still carry the love you once placed so carefully inside my hands. The very same love that taught me gentleness, that lingered in the silence after every goodbye, that quietly followed me through every day until it became part of the way I breathed.

I thought time would reshape it into something unfamiliar, but it never did. If anything, it softened around the edges, settled deeper into my bones, and waited for the day it could bloom before you once more.

There is something unbearably beautiful about loving someone after all this time. Loving you after all this time.

It’s warmer.

Because even after all the distance that has gently passed between us, I find myself falling in love with you in ways I never knew were possible. It blooms again, fuller than before, carrying every longing that will grow as love that I keep all this time. And it’s all is yours to keep.

So tell me, how much time has passed now?

Right, it’s been so long, enough for the world around us to change. Enough for countless tomorrows to become yesterday. Enough for us to become different people. Enough for another thing to happen to one another for us to learn once more. Enough for longing to bring us to one another. And still, the love was still the same as the first I felt. I love you with the very same heart that once reached for yours, only now it has learned how endlessly love can endure. It has learned that coming back to you does not feel like beginning again — it was the same love that I once knew and the love I will love once more. If love has a place it returns to, then mine has always been you. No matter how long and lonely the distance is, no matter how much time slips quietly through our hands, my heart will always find its way back to yours, and fall even deeper in love than it was before.

We face the longing, and still, we let love bloom once more. We face the longing, and still, love lingers quietly between us. We face the longing, and still, our hearts find their way back to one another. We face the longing, and still, we remain where love first found us.

We have known each other for so long that life quietly learned to bind us to one another. We have loved each other for so long that our hearts and bodies remember what our minds no longer have to ask. Somewhere along the way, tomorrow stopped feeling unfamiliar because every future I could imagine had already begun to make room for you.

It has been ages since we first learned what us could be. I never imagined we would carry it this far. We have been through so much, grown through more than we ever expected, and somehow there is still room for each other, still room for every first I have yet to cross as long as you are the one beside me. Sometimes I still wonder when we became this familiar to each other, when your presence stopped feeling like something I had to reach for and quietly became the place my heart always returns to.

I no longer fear tomorrow the way I used to; because my heart has been filled with more love than I ever thought one body could hold, and every bit of it somehow begins with you. Maybe that is why tomorrow has become gentle, somewhere along the way, every future I could imagine had already begun making room for you, making room for all your love, making room for every part of you I get to keep.

I think life would agree with me too, don’t you think? The way it always finds reasons to bring us back to one another, even through the smallest things that would have meant nothing had they happened to anyone else. But because it’s us, they somehow become something only we could ever call ours. Sometimes I laugh to myself whenever I think about us, because life really did try its best to tie us together, didn’t it? As though everything that happened before you and everything that happened before me had been patiently walking toward the same place all along. It is almost funny how naturally it happened, as if life had known something we didn’t.

Things have become so familiar now; something in me always knows to wonder how you are doing before I even realize I am thinking of you, and somehow life on your side always seems to answer. Smallest habits have learned where they belong. The things you do have quietly become part of mine and the things that happen to me somehow always leave room for yours to slip in. All the little things that once belonged to only one of us now remember how to exist together, how to begin after and before one another. We have known each other for so long that life itself seems to have memorized the distance between us and decided to always bring us closer to one another. We have become familiar to each other and so has the life that came after us. Somewhere between all those days and times, loving you stopped feeling like something I had to learn and became something my whole being simply knows.

Each day passes and we are still discovering new firsts together; there are still so many streets waiting for us to walk hand in hand. Let’s always walk together. So many trees that will quietly grow older alongside us, standing in the same places while we keep finding reasons to come back. Let’s always grow along with them. There are still meals and drinks I would never have picked for myself, yet somehow I want to try them simply because your eyes light up whenever you do. Let’s eat together. There are still countless nights waiting for us to lie beneath them, watching the sky change without ever noticing how much time has passed. Let’s sleep next to each other. There are still new movies to talk about even when they are nothing like what either of us would normally choose, but doing it with you always makes me smile enough to want to know everything. Let’s find something that we will love in each other’s favorite. There will always be something unfamiliar waiting for us, yet somehow we always find our way back to each other. We are still here, still side by side. We always did.

That is why I have forgotten how to fear tomorrow. Slowly, something about us has become so familiar that tomorrow no longer feels like a place I have to survive. I think, no, I know I will face tomorrow just fine. Life does not frighten me the way it once did because I carry so much love within me and I am loved by someone who never lets me forget that I am enough. Even when happiness feels distant enough to mistake for stillness. I know where my home is. I know where my heart will always return.

Yet, I still wonder when we became this familiar to each other, until one day I realized I had stopped imagining a future without you because every tomorrow I could dream of had already made a place for you long before I knew it. And perhaps, that is all love has ever been for us. Simply because you are there waiting for me. Simply because you know I will always be there to pull you into my arms. Simply because we are us, and that is enough. Tomorrow does not frighten me anymore because a piece of me has been loved so completely by you, just as a piece of you has found its home in me. No matter what tomorrow chooses to bring, we will meet it the same way we always have, together. And after all this time, I still find myself believing that as long as we have us, tomorrow will always find a way to feel like home.

Sayangku — Sabian..

There are days when I find myself wondering whether familiarity is merely another name for destiny. Days when a warmth settles beneath my skin with such certainty that it feels as though my body has known it for far longer than memory can reach. Days when I hear my heartbeat calling for another soul, even knowing it was not searching for mine and yet somehow, I know it was always yours.

For what else could explain the strange tenderness of it all — the way your existence has woven itself so naturally into the fabric of my own? The way my body remembers you before it remembers itself, as though some part of me had been carrying the shape of you long before we ever met. As though you had always been here. Perhaps you were. Perhaps my heart had spent years preparing a place for your name, building a home for it in silence long before either of us knew it belonged to you.

And still, the world continues.

Another season sheds its leaves and becomes another. Another tree stretches its roots deeper into the earth that was always meant to hold it. Another road unfolds, widening the distance between some souls while guiding others gently toward one another. Another love blooms where old grief once lay buried beneath the soil. Another fragment of warmth finds its way home;

and with every passing season, something within me seems to settle where it belongs. Another piece of my heart finally found yours.

Day after day, I watch life gather itself around us until I can no longer tell where your days end and mine begin, where your laughter fades and my thoughts take hold of it, where your presence stops being yours alone and becomes something that lives softly within me. So I let your laughter linger in the folds of my thoughts. I make a sanctuary of my silence and leave room for yours beside it. I keep your warmth safe against my chest as though it were something sacred. And I know, that my hand will always find its way into yours whenever you are here. Safely.

Because your presence moves through me with a familiarity that feels older than my body, older than memory itself. As though you were meant to be written into me, and I into you. As though our souls recognized one another before our eyes ever did. We have carried the weight of old scars and familiar tears, tending wounds that somehow became gentler in each other’s hands. We learn the gentle language of having each other in between silence. We learn where the scars ache, where they soften, and where they wish to be held. We become careful with each other’s broken places until they no longer feel broken. And somewhere along the way, your presence ceases to feel like something that entered my life. Instead, it feels like something that had always been finding its way back to me.

Like a tree growing toward the light it has always known was there. Like roots finding the earth prepared for them before they ever touched the ground. Like two rivers meeting after wandering separate landscapes, only to discover they were always moving toward the same sea. Perhaps that is why forever never feels distant when I think of you;

because we speak about forever as though it already belongs to us. As though it is not waiting somewhere ahead, but unfolding gently around us with every passing day. As though familiarity itself has been growing between us all this time like branches reaching toward one another until there is no space left between them but shade and shelter. And when I think of forever, most of all I imagine your hand resting in mine. I imagine another morning with your breathing beside me. I imagine the quiet weight of your presence filling the spaces that once felt empty. I imagine growing older beneath the same tree, season after season, while the roots of our lives continue to deepen beneath us.

And perhaps that is all forever has ever been. And if forever exists anywhere, I think it exists here—in your hand finding mine, in the way our lives slowly learned to make a home around each other, in between us.

In another lifetime, let’s meet and be each other’s home?

We will not find each other as walls or quiet rooms where we can hide from the world, but as something more tender, something that breathes and remembers us the way one does. A home that knows the shape of our names without asking, just the way yours remembers mine. A home that welcomes us without question, just the way your arms embrace me. A home that feels like warmth before we even reach it, just the way you always try to speak softly when the world is too harsh for my body. There is nothing in this world that could ever define home the way you do — it is in the way I can already see it so clearly, as if you have always been there (you do), waiting at the end of every road I have ever taken. It is in the way I can already feel how every corner of that home will carry the same warmth as your arms wrapped around me.

I know it will take time for us to find it, to build it slowly from all the little things we will share. From the laughter that slips out of us even when there is nothing to talk about but each other, from the silence that never feels empty because your presence lingers in every corner, from the small moments that somehow become everything because you are part of the home.

We will be each other’s home in the next life, a place where love does not need to bloom every day because it already exists as we rest in each other’s arms.

We will see love in tired faces, we will see love in happy faces, we will see love in gentle hugs, we will see love through warm gaze, we will see love growing in every space between us. We will be a place where we can finally set our burdens down without fear knowing we will always be there when our shoulders are too tired to bear the world alone. Where we do not have to shrink ourselves to fit into someone else’s expectations, nor pretend to be anything more than what we are, because we are always perfect in each other’s eyes. Where we are allowed to exist as we are, and still be enough for each other.

I know you will be my warmest home, a place that does not ask me to be strong all the time, that lets me rest, that lets me fall apart without turning away, without needing me to search for somewhere safe again because being with you already makes me feel safe enough to break. And I promise, I will be yours in that same quiet warmth, a place you can return to when the world feels too loud, or perhaps too heavy for your heart to carry. I will be the home that embraces you even when you feel bare, the home that holds you gently that even the world itself will have to step aside and let me find my way to your happiness.

We will be a home that understands each other in ways words could never reach, nor the world could ever touch.

So , even if time pulls us apart, even if death tries to draw a line between where you end and where I begin, I will still find my way back to you. I will follow every trace of you across lifetimes, in every place your existence has ever touched. I will find you where your heartbeat once rested, where your laughter once lingered in the air, where the light once found its way into your eyes. I will find you in the wind that remembers how your hair moved with it, in the trees that stood witness to your presence, in every quiet corner of the world that still carries you in its memory. I will find you.

And, I will meet you again in every lifetime that dares to begin without you. I will search for you in every unfamiliar place until it begins to feel like home, because you are there. I will find the thread that binds us, the one that I make sure refuses to break no matter how far we are pulled apart, and I will follow it back to you, again and again, until distance no longer exists between us.

Until there is only you and me, until there is only us begin together and be each other’s home. Despite everything, still.

Ingat kamu bagaimana mula-mula kita bertemu dulu?

Barangkali pada masa itu dunia belum sebaik-baiknya mengerti, belum sebaik-baiknya memahami, dan belum sebaik-baiknya sudi membiarkan dua langkah berjalan seirama. Seakan-akan sengaja menggantungkan jarak di antara kita agar rindu punya pekerjaan, seakan bumi menyembunyikan jalan pulang supaya hati belajar mencari, dan seakan takdir hanya pandai menangguhkan, bukan menggenapi. Namun setegar-tegarnya dunia, setajam-tajamnya putusan takdir, Sabian, aku tetap kembali menemukanmu di persimpangan yang sama. Seperti doa yang tidak pernah salah alamat sujudnya. Seperti harap yang tau betul ke mana mesti ia jatuhkan dirinya selepas dilepas dari tadah tangan ini. Seperti rindu yang tidak pandai tamat, sebab ia menolak selesai ketika namamu masih menjadi apa yang sebaiknya aku semoga-semogakan.

Dan kamu, sebagaimana dulu — masih dengan dirimu yang sama, masih dengan namamu yang sama; dan masih dengan cintamu yang hangat.

Maka boleh jadi kini dunia lebih mengerti, atau barangkali ia akhirnya belajar, bahwa ada pertemuan yang tidak dapat dibantah oleh apa pun, sebab ia sudah diletakkan jauh hari sebelum kita pandai menyebut namanya, bahkan saat lidah lebih fasih dari pemilik nama. Kubiarkan takdir kita bermain pada sela-sela dunia; menyusup ke lipatan-lipatan waktu yang jarang didatangi manusia; meninggalkan tanda pada tiap sudut seolah ia hendak memastikan: kita ini bukan sekadar kebetulan—apa-apa yang sengaja ditaruh pada hidup, agar suatu saat menemukan jalannya sendiri. Menemukan rumahnya.

Pada akhirnya bukan hanya aku yang memilikimu dalam hidup. Perlahan-lahan dunia pun mulai merajut dirimu ke dalam kebaikan yang ia bawa; menautkan namamu pada cinta yang ia tumbuhkan dari hal-hal paling kecil, paling biasa, paling sepi sekalipun. Dunia mengikat hadirmu pada banyak hal, meski itu kehilangan, agar kamu tau bahagia tidak selalu datang utuh, namun ia selalu kembali—selama kamu masih ada, selama kita belum benar-benar selesai dipertemukan. Selama kamu adalah kamu.

Dan pada tiap-tiap celah yang dulu kukira semata ruang kosong, aku mulai mengerti: dunia pun punya caranya sendiri untuk mencintaimu, sebagaimana ia mencintai dirinya hidup. Maka, aku biarkan segala yang pernah jadi serpih diriku bersemayam. Kukuburkan pelan-pelan sebagai benih yang tidak meminta dipuji, tidak meminta dikenali, tidak pula meminta disebut-sebut. Lalu kuwariskan diam-diam pada setiap jejak kaki yang kamu tinggalkan di dunia ini; agar tiap langkahmu menjadi ladang, agar tiap tapakmu menjadi tempat tumbuhnya aku — meski hanya sebagai bayang yang setia, meski hanya sebagai nama yang aku biarkan tinggal bersamamu. Kelak, mereka akan menjelma: tumbuh jadi nadi di tubuh dunia, atas kebaikan dan kasihmu. Bila segala sesuatu pada akhirnya mesti kembali kepada sunyi, sebab begitulah dunia menutup tiap kisah, biarlah sunyi itu pun ikut mengerti: apa-apa yang kelak memahami kamu, akan terlebih dahulu mengenal aku; akan terlebih dahulu mempelajari cinta kita. Dan bila kelak orang-orang hanya menjumpai jejakmu tanpa mengetahui dari mana hangat itu berasal, akan aku pastikan tiap-tiap aku yang bersemayam pada nadi dunia membiarkan mereka mengerti kamu, memahami hangatmu.

Sekalipun kita tidak abadi, kamu akan tetap berdiam dengan manis di antara kehidupan-kehidupanku; seakan hidup selalu punya jalan untuk memulangkanmu. Sebagaimana waktu mempertemukan kita, sebagaimana kelak waktu berhenti, aku percaya dunia akan selalu punya caranya sendiri untuk memulangkan kita pada mula-mula—pada pertemuan yang sama, pada awal yang sama, pada kita yang sama.

If one day fate allows us to grow old together, when our hair turns the color of quiet winters and our steps echo softer against the earth, I want my heart to learn the way yours beats. I want it to know the rhythm of your being, the hush of your laughter in the early morning, the breath you hold between sorrows, the way joy lights your gaze like lanterns in the dusk, and the silent thrum of your thoughts when they carry my name. I want every beat in my chest to carry a piece of your soul, folded gently into it. Let my heart be more than mine, let it be a dwelling for you. A place where all your selves find rest, the one who glances shyly, the one who listens without needing answer, the one who, despite weariness, still chooses to speak. Let it remember you not just as the love of my life, but as the rhythm beside me, step after step, across time. Let it hold your voice, your laughter, your stillness, like prayer, like something sacred passed from breath to breath. So if one day I forget, my heart will remember for me.

Because there will come a time when words fall from our reach, when speech becomes a stranger, and only touch, only gaze, only silence will know how to speak for us. Yet even then, I will keep learning you. I will learn the weight of your fingers when they reach for mine, the language written in the corners of your eyes, and I will love you in the smallest, purest acts, by choosing to understand you, still, always. Bibi, sayang. I want to keep celebrating us, in ways we may not yet know. Perhaps by sitting together beneath an old sky, remembering which seeds we planted with our hands, and which grew wild simply because we loved. I want to keep honoring what we share, even when words have withered, because, sayangku, a piece of you will always stay inside me. Just a fragment, perhaps, but enough to keep me whole.